School Mission Statement

River Heights Elementary School provides an instructional program that enhances the delivery of the Alberta Education Curriculum. We do this by emphasizing critical and creative thinking skills within a safe and caring environment that promotes the integration of learning, technology and student independence/interdependence. Our motto incorporates the three words; Explore, Create and Reflect.

Contact Us

Phone: (403) 527-3730
Fax: (403) 526-3842

Principles, Values and Beliefs

As a school that is part of Medicine Hat School District #76, we support the Principles, Values and Beliefs as outlined in the District Educational Plan. In addition, our school values:

the principle of an integrated approach to leaning

student independence and interdependence

critical and creative thinking skills

respect, safety, vigilance and praise to build a safe and caring community

the meaningful integration of technology

Guiding Principles

Overview of the Four Guiding Principles of our School

Critical and creative thinking skills are central to our program. Students are immersed in the use of thinking skills that are then used to investigate curriculum topics mandated by the Alberta Education Curriculum.

The application of Edward DeBono s Six Thinking Hats is taught from Kindergarten to Grade Six as well as additional thinking strategies suitable for particular grade levels. These thinking skills are valuable tools that encourage students to grow in creative and critical thought patterns.

Students at River Heights are encouraged to make connections and build mental bridges between subject areas. This integrated approach to learning facilitates student independence as they develop ownership in projects and activities involving more than one curriculum subject.

We believe that activities encouraging children to make clear plans, organize ideas and resources, investigate topics, share their learning with others and reflect on their progress, challenge students to become more responsible for their learning and to grow in independence. Meaningful Integrated Technology serves as a vehicle for many of our integrated activities.

About Tribes

Thousands of schools throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries have become Tribes Learning Communities, safe and caring environments in which kids can do well! Creating a positive school or classroom environment is the most effective way to improve behavior and learning.

Students achieve because they:

feel included and appreciated by peers and teachers

are respected for their different abilities, cultures, gender, interests and dreams

are actively involved in their own learning

have positive expectations from others that they will succeed.

The clear purpose of the Tribes process is to assure the healthy development of every child so that each one has the knowledge, skills and resiliency to be successful in a rapidly changing world.

How It Works

Tribes is a step-by-step process to achieve specific learning goals. Four agreements are honored:

attentive listening

appreciation/no put downs

mutual respect, and

the right to pass

Students learn a set of collaborative skills so they can work well together in long-term groups (tribes). The focus is on how to:

help each other work on tasks

set goals and solve problems

monitor and assess progress

celebrate achievements.

The learning of academic material and self-responsible behavior is assured because teachers utilize methods based upon brain-compatible learning, multiple intelligences, cooperative learning and social development research.

Our Library

Our library program is more than an addition to the classroom curriculum. Our library houses all the resources used in the classrooms. Since we rarely use textbooks, the literature and information materials become the basis of the students research. In each classroom you will find hundreds of library books being used as the vehicle for learning their core curriculum. The goal of each student is to learn how to find these books, make wise choices as to which materials are better, and then how to locate them within our library. You can even locate our materials from your home computer (click the link above).

Since our resources are well used and frequently returned, we invite your help in keeping our library collection ready for use. If you would like to spend an hour or more putting books away that children have returned, your help would be really valued!

Another way your family can share in the library program is to encourage your own students to become habitual readers. When they come home with library books, check out their choices. Communicate with your classroom teacher about their personal favorites, desires and reading needs. Read with your children. Form a consistent time and place for their daily reading. We love to share new titles and book series that you may enjoy as a family read-a-loud.

Books do get damaged or lost. We expect students to be responsible pay for the replacement costs of these materials. As a family, your help is appreciated in forming habits that will build respect and responsibility for our library materials. We have a one week due date for primary books and a two week due date for elementary resources. This means the readers can bring them back earlier (which is often the case for picture book readers) or if the novel is rather long, the students can renew them for several more weeks.